Ships of Valor 1: Persona Non Grata

by Aaron Kennedy

  Although the shields were able to absorb the shockwave itself, the air around the sloop was not as protected. It created a nasty turbulence effect jarring me in my simple harness. I had weighed the benefits of the racing harness when I first powered her up, and like a fool had opted for the lazy choice that would likely kill me.

  Fortunately, as near as I could tell those were the last of them. Unfortunately, the sloop was not exactly nondescript. Heart was going to hate me but better to beg forgiveness when I saw him next. I shifted the skin back to default gray from the indigo we had set the sloop to and headed southward to the harbor keeping out of as much of the main traffic as possible. Occasionally blips would appear on the radar telling me something was moving towards me, but nothing triggering my fight or flight instincts.

  Upon reaching the harbor, I debated my options. The easy solution would be to simply park and carry on with my unscripted plan. Unfortunately, after looking around I realized simplicity would result in a lot more collateral damage than I was willing to risk. That left the water. I loathe water and the recent submarine adventures with Heart had not altered my disdain one smidgen. This wasn’t about me, though, it was about the mission and the mission was about people. Just because I wasn’t fond of water didn’t justify putting others at risk unnecessarily.

  Steeling myself up, I floated the sloop out over the water until it was hovering and committed to one of the hardest choices since coming back to Terra. I lowered the AGS down to the waterline and popped the canopy. From under the seat, I pulled a case about the size of a backpack and palmed it open. Inside was a one-kilo brick of Telirem, five detonators, and a remote switch.

  Telirem is a stable explosive polymer folk in the trade use to knock buildings down. I was familiar with it from my Legion days but generally, preferred Candulem since it could be used in no Oxygen environments. Each has its uses and for the most part are interchangeable until getting into specialized areas.

  We hadn’t anticipated needing the case but put it in the sloop in case. I broke the brick into several chunks and placed one behind the pilot’s seat and one on the dash with a detonator in each. I replaced the rest and prepared myself for something I really did not want to do. Ensuring my satchel was sealed and using the case as an impromptu flotation device I slowly lowered myself into the water. Maintaining a death grip with my real arm, I kicked away from the sloop hoping to get as much forward momentum as possible. I eventually made it to shore, heart pounding, and without any external screaming. I couldn’t watch when I clicked the remote but I felt the heat moments before what remained of the sloop sank to the bottom of Honk Kong’s harbor.

  Chapter 41

  My feet were wet and I was unhappy. At least it wasn’t cold out, nothing worse than being cold and wet. Not that the average temperature in Hong Kong ever got below fifteen degrees Celsius. It would have been a nice night, though, probably right around ship temp, normally set at twenty-three and a half. Most of my clothes had already dried and synth-leather doesn’t absorb water like cloth, but my socks were squishing and was adding to my annoyance.

  I loved the sloop, but it had become a liability. It reminded me of a time before the Legion, but the sloop was easy to spot and most likely, how GSI tracked me so I needed to ditch it. Additionally, it was loaded to the seams with communication equipment and all manner of other data that could probably lead back to either the hotel or Heart himself. I was unwilling to risk that. By destroying the main control array and the electrical chassis, the chances of recovering anything useful were slim to none. Unfortunately, I hadn’t thought everything through when I decided to blow the sloop up. Because I had been blocked from talking to Heart and Hayes, I hadn’t remembered our comms relay was on board. I had likely cut them off from each other as well. That also meant each of us was operating in a vacuum again.

  Hayes’ words were echoing in my head. “Gadsden, you set off an alarm. Get out of there now! ” It took all my anger from destroying the sloop to tamp down my flight reflex and keep myself from standing out even more than normal. To keep moving slowly the city and try not to draw attention to myself until I could get somewhere safe. Whatever had blocked our communications originally had potentially compromised everything else. Was the hotel safe? What about the location Hayes’ was sending me to? Hell, this would be easier if Heart was with me.

  I kept having to reset this bloody damn mission. If I kept doing something wrong repeatedly, maybe it’s me. I chuckled since I wasn’t the only one. Missiles part deux had shown GSI could fall into the same pattern as well. Hayes hadn’t said how her team was attacked, but I was willing to make three guesses.

  First things first, I needed to get off the street. As soon as I was able, I rented the cheapest hotel I could with the few hard creds I had on me. I usually don’t carry much cash, barely enough to cover street food. At least my addiction to fruit came in handy. It got me out of the open and into a dive only slightly smaller than the first cabin I shared in the Legion. It couldn’t have been more than eight cubic meters including the refresher. Outside of that, it had a bed and a door.

  The first thing I did was kick my boots off and toss my socks in the sink. My feet were a blistery mess. As I let them air out, I took stock of my belongings. I still had my boots and my coat as well as my gun and three mags of ammo. On top of those I had three detonators left, most of the Telirem, and the tablet Heart had programmed for me. I was sorting through everything and performing a bit of field surgery on my heels trying to figure out how to get back in touch with either Hayes or Heart without compromising them.

  The sloop had been a relay, but I wasn’t sure what our adversary had been able to glean from it. I assumed GSI simply jammed our communications, but assumption is the mother of all screw-ups. Neither of them had tried to call my comm unit directly as far as I could tell, and we had gone to great lengths to make sure I couldn’t be tracked via it, but I was cautious of using it all the same. I didn’t know if Hayes or Heart were safe, nor they me, and that put us in an odd stalemate of not being able to contact each other.

  I was at a loss. I decided the best option for the moment would be to get cleaned up and get some rest. I used the refresher, first for myself, and then again as a second rate laundry to get the harbor water out of my clothes. After reaching a stage where looking at least somewhat clean I hung them to dry and hit the bed for broken sleep.

  It didn’t do me much good as I couldn’t get more than an hour at a time before my eyes would pop open. I finally gave in and powered up the tablet hoping to come up with ideas. I backtracked through my memory until I got back into warehouse thinking about everything I saw. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary but Hayes had told me the computer wouldn’t have done any good. What had she meant?

  I linked the dampers up and played the video back. The servers didn’t look any different than anything I had seen before but both she and Heart had waved me off instantly. U93s is what Hayes called them. It was a starting point at least. My next set of searches focused on servers and other types of computer hardware. After about twenty minutes, I was beginning to grasp the issue.

  If crystallic drone chips were where basic AI started on a scale of one to one-hundred, then U93s were in the high nineties. There were six of them in that warehouse alone. Before I let my paranoia get the better of me, I tried to figure how much actual computing power a place like the distribution center would need since it was both massive and complex. I may have been overthinking it. I looked for comparable facilities and as near as I could tell, each used less than a fraction of one single comp. These were definitely overkill.

  Heart and I had talked about distributed networks and artificial intelligence. Would these fit the bill? I started looking up what kind of equipment would be in a ship like Heart since he was my main point of reference. I worked under the assumption he was as close to the top of the line since he had the means to upgrade himself as often as he could. He would need more than a single U93.

>   But what about when he first woke up? That’s the thing about tech, it gets exponentially better with time. He’d been awake for a century and he said he was on his third upgrade since then. Could one of those work for Heart of old? I was out of my depth doing this level of research, but as near as I could tell one of these could support a hdrive. I couldn’t tell if a single server could support one for a ship fitting fifteen-hundred folks loaded to capacity.

  There’s an old adage about how little computing power it took to actually to get to Luna. Of course, Luna is massive compared to any ship, even one as big as Heart. It’s a matter of point and pray or as my grandad liked to say “anyone can hit a barn with a shotgun.” The hard part is landing. At that point, he still had a moderately large crew sitting at over fifty regular, and three times that number in medical staff. The comps he had were split up since navigation didn’t need to be linked to medical. The Looney’s in an effort to save space decided to merge everything. That pragmatism was probably one of the major reasons he gained sentience.

  I realized I was over-thinking the problem. Tunnel vision had nearly gotten the better of me yet again. It did not matter because I wasn’t dealing with Heart of old. If a U93 could support a hdrive then it had enough juice to support sentience. It was a matter of whether there was a big enough database behind it. If the hdrive in question was too small, then no go, but a bigger drive would need more U93s, therefore, larger databases. Scaling was the actual issue but GSI had the U93s running as part of a larger networked system.

  So how could I deal with a networked system? The comps at the warehouse were part of the AI, but probably only a small part. Losing them would be a nuisance not devastating.

  Then came the ethical issues of actually going after the AI. I have no problem killing in self-defense. Honestly, I have little problem with killing at all, but I want to make sure the person being killed deserves it. I’ve always justified it as taking down monsters. I’m no hero and don’t claim to be but that doesn’t mean there aren’t aspirations. My issue is with murder and I’d long since solidified the difference between the two in my head. Unfortunately, the more I started thinking about the issue, the more I started thinking about the attempts on my life as reactionary and defensive. No less attempts at murder, but a lot closer to killing than before.

  Bloody hell, I wished Heart was with me to run the math. None of this made any damn sense. I shut the tablet off and stared at the ceiling, thinking about the night’s events until sleep finally took me.

  Chapter 42

  Morning came far too quickly. I managed to get out of the hotel before the clerk came demanding more rent for another day. I was starving after the previous night’s adventure but I had barely enough left to get a drink and a quick bite to eat. Nothing special but enough to keep the stomach from screaming at me for a couple of hours. If worst came to it, I could use my accounts but I was hoping to avoid doing so until I got in contact with the others.

  Hunger is a conditioned response. The body and brain telling us we need food but that isn’t strictly true. A human can go a long time without eating. Most humans have enough natural fat on them to go a few weeks without having to worry much. I’m fairly trim even at my size but as long as I’ve got water I can go a week without real issue. I’d be grumpy as hell, but I could do it.

  Back in basic when we first learning to deal with spacesuits, our instructors had us in them for extended periods. The problem is we couldn’t eat in them. They’re designed so we can get fluids, and other nutrients, but our stomachs think we need solid food. Growing up back on Terra on what was essentially a ranch, I had never gone more than eight hours without a full belly before. Sixteen hours in, I got ornery. On day two, after having slept in a suit, I was downright mean. The call sign Rattlesnake stuck partly because of that, and partly because the guy who gave it to me was a history buff who knew about the links to the Gadsden flag and the godforsaken desert purchase. After I had been fed real food and calmed down considerably, it stuck.

  Empty stomachs and spacesuit training had me thinking about another important lesson from basic, the Rother Protocols. The Legion is a big organization even though we break units into bite size chunks that fit on ships. But what happens if one guy gets left behind? There is a real risk when there are ten-thousand folks running around, like on a planet not directly controlled yet. One of the big things we did take from the military was accountability of our people. We do everything in our power to make sure we know where our folks are at all times. But things happen. Jump jets crash, comms fail, and so forth. Therefore, the Legion developed protocols to offset those eventualities.

  That’s what the Rother Protocols are. They draw their name from a guy we lost long ago. Not Legion, way before us, but the event should not have happened. The goal is that it never happens again and one of the best ways to do that is to make the issue personal. Make it about the people. No one cares about rules or regulations for the most part but we do care about stories. Every Legionnaire knows the Rother tale. The guy got left behind in the desert and we lost one of our own. Not because he screwed up, but because we screwed up.

  Our suit training was a building block for that. Legion kit is top notch. It will filter water, even biowaste for weeks without issue. The suit can scrub air, handle pressures, and even filters out most of the deadly radiation. But if a Legionnaire finds himself alone on a planet he needs to have a plan.

  The suit covers most of the survival needs, but the goal is making it until rescue. The assumption is the Legion has to figure out a body is missing, and then has to come get them from wherever the unit went next. The protocols were originally written in the pre-hyperspace era so returning was less of an issue, but as distances and ships got bigger, so did the amount of time it could take to come back. It’s not like a ship can simply drop out of hspace.

  Originally, the Legion told folks not to move because finding them was easiest if they were in the same spot. That is true, but when dealing with combat units there are slight adjustments. We, therefore, made the first goal to find better shelter. The suit is good, but there’s still local weather to deal with and depending on where the Legionnaire is that can include things like meteors. Getting inside helps with survival. If he’s dead when the ship gets back, it was all for nothing. That’s what happened with Rother, he was found too late.

  Next came keeping any local nasties off my back. It goes back to the combat missions of the Legion. Chances are if we were there, it was a somewhat hostile setting. Usually, we’re heavily armed which helps, but one gun against an entire world does squat. As tech advances, we got smarter, though. A blaster is not only a blaster, it’s also a battery. It takes a lot of energy to propel plasma charges several hundred meters and having the ability to tap into that as a reserve power source as needed is a godsend. Two of the best features are the ability to keep the suit running, and the emergency beacon.

  By linking the gun back to the suit, it will keep clean air and water going almost indefinitely. A standard combat load has a ton of charges and the design mindset was a person would be overrun or starve to death before they ran out of O2 or H2O. The distress beacon, on the other hand, is a Hail Mary Pass. Every suit, gun, and ship in the Legion have one built in. Flick the switch and the beacon starts to exponentially burn the battery down pumping more and more power calling everyone on all known frequencies, friend or foe. It is a literal man overboard signal designed as a last ditch effort to get help.

  I had never personally heard of anyone using one, but we tested the things almost every place we went. That were one of the things constantly pounded into our heads. We don’t leave folks behind, not intentionally at least. Moreover, if it ever does happen we will move heaven and earth to get them back and if that means diverting a five megatonne ship like the Rope and the rest of its task force to do it, so be it.

  The previous night I had intuitively followed some of these rules. Because the environment is more than only atmosphere an
d weather and includes people, culture, as well as little things like cameras, I had actively evaded security mainly because I stood out like a blue giant compared to the rest of the Hong Kong populace. We hadn’t realized prior to meeting Hayes, but if Heart could tap into the local nets, then GSI’s AI sure as hell could as well. Luckily, the part of town I was located in wasn’t infested with cameras, but the closer I got to my original hotel the worse surveillance would become. Avoiding discovery had been my first plan of action. Shelter and food were embedded in that with my bargain priced hotel and using cash instead of cards. The last thing I needed to do was figure out how to call for help.

  Originally we had established rally points at the hotel and Heart himself, and when the plan went sideways we added Hayes’ safe house. The loss of the sloop meant I couldn’t cover any distance over open ocean removing my ability to get to Heart. Shifting back to the Rother Protocols, I decided to hit the safe house. That’s where Hayes and Heart expected me to turn up and was the least likely to compromise either of their current locations. Probably the best place to set up a distress beacon as well.

  Chapter 43

  I was trying my best not to judge Hayes by the condition of the safe house, but given my first impressions, I would call her a hoarder, as in need of medical-reconditioning level hoarder. Packed to the rafters with crates and boxes, the entry of the place looked like she was expecting the apocalypse or couldn’t throw anything away. I maneuvered slowly through the main hall fearing Einstein knew what would fall on me. It’s a good thing I did because I encountered a near-invisible tripwire about three meters in. Another step and all that would have remained would have been a very expensive jacket and a pair of boots.